


Lady Luck’s Second Life

by callmeflo



Series: Gang Patches [4]
Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Gen, No dogs were harmed in the writing of this fic, Origin Prompt, but her old owner is a dick sorry, warning for uncharitable thoughts about dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeflo/pseuds/callmeflo
Summary: origin prompt 2: losing their wayBase Score: 20 AP (Writing: 1048 words)+50 AP (Origin Prompt)+5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)+8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)Total AP per submission: 83Base Score: 10 GP (Writing: 1048 words)+10 GP (Origin Prompt)+6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)Total GP per submission: 26
Series: Gang Patches [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556458





	1. Chapter 1

Ray throws himself into the driver’s seat, tosses his handful of paperwork to the side which spills into the footwell, and slams the door shut. His face is screwed up in frustration and anger, cheeks ruddy red with humiliation. He slams his hands down onto the steering wheel but it doesn’t help. 

The owners’ car park out the back is still full—he hadn’t wasted a minute before storming away from the embarrassing scene. He would already be halfway home if he hadn’t had to run across the sandy track like an idiot after the dog who ignored his repeated calls. She was out there for ten minutes more than every other competitor and still never reached the finish line. 

He punches the wheel once more and lets out a growl that trails off into a tired sigh. Top of the line breeding, a pedigree no one would scoff at. Years of training and food and vet bills, and for what? He’d be better off breeding her and trying again with the litter. Might as well retire her now anyway, after her fourth consecutive failure. 

His seatbelt goes ignored. The van sputters to life and Ray flicks on the headlights to illuminate the dim evening roads—here in this city, shitty though it is, the stars have long since been covered by the smog of artificial light. He's been here for ten years now and yet he feels as pathetic as when he first moved in, near penniless with his girl ghosting him…

A few months ago he thought he’d finally done it, bred a winner to be his legacy, the first in a long line. Lady Luck, he called her, hopeful, when she was born with such long legs and pretty brindle markings that outshined her dam’s. She’d trained so well, flying after the hares, really stretching out her stride, looking faster than anything he’d ever seen. 

And then he puts her on the track and she trots after the lure for a few seconds before getting bored. Nearly every time. What a joke. 

He slams the wheel one final time, accidentally brushing the horn and startling the driver passing him innocently in the other lane. Ray sends the guy an unearned scowl. 

As the road straightens out after a roundabout, he leans over to pop open the dashboard cubby and rummages around, at first without looking and then with increasingly longer glances. He finally grasps the palm sized box and hums with satisfaction. Inside is one last cigarette, which curbs the brief flicker of happiness, but he lifts it to his lips all the same—he certainly needs it right now. His lighter deftly bursts to life and he’s soon inhaling deeply. 

Maybe he’d been too soft on her as a pup? He’d kept her with a sibling for company as he always does, but perhaps that just encouraged her to play instead of do her job. He’s for sure doing something wrong, a decade into the business and only a single small shelf of ribbons. It’s about time he changed some of his tactics. 

He blows a wisp of smoke, curling his tongue to shape it into rings. The small cab gets stuffy quickly so he reaches down to unwind the window despite the cool autumn temperature. The air thunders in his ears as he takes the road leading out of town toward his pokey little farm, pressing his foot down now the traffic is out of his way. He’s distracted by the glowing embers of his now stubby cigarette when a massive arctic looms close to his side, near deafening him. 

Ray winces and goes to toss the butt so he can close his window on the noise, but the dog crated behind his seat decides to let out a burst of barking. The scowl that had been gradually loosening abruptly returns at the reminder of her presence and he grits his teeth. 

“Shut the HELL up!” he roars over his shoulder, jabbing his elbow back to violently jostle the cage. He receives a short whine and then blessed quiet, so turns forward again and—

He’s drifted a little without realising, headlights lighting up the side of the lorry that should not be in front of him, and once he realises he stomps hard on the break and wrenches the steering wheel to the side, squeezing his eyes shut, but he’s turned too sharply and now he’s facing the central reservation and the thick steel barrier planted in it. 

The van hits the barrier at an angle and rolls. It seems unending as gravity turns upside down: papers flutter about his head, the pine scented tree on his mirror sways into his face, shattered glass tinkles and glistens merrily. 

And then it lands, hard and solid and unforgivingly with an almighty smash. Ray lays crumpled in a heap on the roof, unconscious as various wounds begin trickling crimson. Peace holds for a few moments, with just the gentle sound of glass shards settling to be heard, distant vehicles so far oblivious to the accident.

And then in the back of the van is movement. A brindle head lifts, long nose twitching in the air as it catches the scents of blood and smoke and—outdoors. The dog is bruised but makes it to her feet, scrambling upright to inspect the situation. 

The back end of the van is crumpled, both doors scrunched so they no longer seal, and the crate itself is battered too. A greyhound may be tall and long but they are also thin, and Lady Luck uses her slight build to crawl through the widened bars and wiggle out the doors, until she’s stepping onto soft yellowed grass. 

Freedom is something she’s never had, always shuffled from her kennel to the crate, lead clipping onto her leather collar with practised ease. Slipping from the back of the van is like being released from the starting box: a long stretch of freedom revealed before her white paws, but this time with no intent gazes watching over her with greed.

Lady Luck is the fastest greyhound in the city—when she wants to run—and the long road ahead is a track awaiting her. For the first time that she can remember, her spindly tail begins to wag merrily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 2: losing their way
> 
> Base Score: 20 AP (Writing: 1048 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 83
> 
> Base Score: 10 GP (Writing: 1048 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 26


	2. Chapter 2

Late December. Possibly the worst time of year for a stray, especially in a corner of the country that reaches below freezing every winter without fail. It hasn’t quite got there yet, but the past half a week has been on and off snow flurries, trying its best to settle on the roads and grass.

The night is drawing in now too, and with it comes an inevitable chill as the sun hides away. The stars are pretty but offer no comfort. Any humans who’ve been hanging around to enjoy the festive weather have scurried back to their warm homes and soft blankets and loving families, taking with them their pity and meagre offerings.

But leftover scraps are better than nothing, and are the reason she’s lived so long out on the streets. She doesn’t stand a chance at being taken in by anyone: she wasn’t bred for a family. Her large stature, even bone thin and lanky legged and short furred, wouldn’t suit the poky townhouses of the city residents, nor even a seat in a minivan of tourists passing through. The obvious badly healed break in her leg from years back does her no favours either, the awkward limp heralding significant vet bills.

The previous night had been spent on a covered doorstep in a back alley, behind the bakery with the kind, elderly lady who offered her an unbought sausage roll. People don’t like strays hanging around too close to the food places, though, so she’d had to wander off come morning, and has since gone too far to easily make it back tonight. She walks on and on, frozen concrete nipping at her paw pads and sending shivers up her spine.

The city’s well maintained park is picturesque in all directions. But the pretty cobblestone bridge over the lake doesn’t have enough bank beneath it to shelter her; the regularly placed benches are slatted with gaps that won’t offer her cover; the winter bare trees and bristly shrubs have long since dropped their cosy canopy of leaves. She sighs and keeps going.

A hefty gust of sharp wind suddenly tosses handfuls of snowflakes across the dark landscape, leaving damp spots across her fur. Even as she huddles against the deluge, tail tucked tightly to her belly, it’s already moving on, and all evidence of it mixes right into the rippling puddles and disintegrates. 

A main road eventually appears through the foliage but it’s quieter than normal during the holiday. The dog waits for one brightly lit lorry to pass by before trotting across, to where the trees look denser and ground softer, a relief for tired paws.

This side is uncared for, as if the road is the city limits—here it’s more wild, with larger tree trunks that have gone undisturbed and untrimmed over the years, smaller saplings growing between the roots of their parents, not pulled up by gardeners’ tools. The ground is coated in leaves that are now brown, creating a plush rug dotted with bunches of fungi sprouting from the rot, not a single piece raked up and carried away.

But it doesn’t make it ugly or messy like the humans seem to think. This piece of raw, undomesticated nature is beautiful in the toadstools’ colours, the young life growing straight from the death of the old leaves, the traces of wildlife coexisting peacefully on the branches that would’ve otherwise been sawn off. She thinks she rather likes this side of the park.

As she maunders past the tree line, rooting through the thickets and ferns until she’s metres deep into the wild forest, she comes across a clearing housing an unexpected sign of humans: a small shrine, mossy and weathered but still intact. To whom it’s dedicated, she couldn’t begin to tell: no statue stands pride of place, nor are there any distinguishing features. For all she knows, it’s a shrine to the woodland inhabitants.

One paw lifts to step forward for a closer inspection, but something else catches her attention first and stalls her: a ghostly white glow emerging from the forest’s darker depths, bright and translucent as if the moon had been pulled right down from the sky and into reach. For how spooky it is, you’d think it would appear abruptly, furiously—but instead it’s agonisingly slow in its approach, prowling, stalking. It draws her in even as it makes her blink and squint, eerie yet magical, like a flame leading a moth.

Something swells within her at the sight of the eldritch creature, a feeling she’s never felt before that turns her limbs to lead and raises the hair along her quivering spine, but keeps her from looking away and makes her tilt forward in interest. She wants nothing more than to run, but whether she’d go toward the being or in the opposite direction, she’s not sure.

Her eyes adjust to the unnatural moonlight, and then she’s looking into four unblinking white eyes. The voice that echoes through her mind is androgynous and hollow, emotionless.

“Wandering, seeking, searching / following wisps that lead to nowhere / awaiting a purpose / and yet—“

From there the two heads devolve into a tangle of overlapping lines made even more incomprehensible by being in completely different languages, but the sound overall is almost lyrical, as if they are reading a (very confusing) poem aloud. She listens for another minute, spellbound, until the words are suddenly English once more:

“Will she come before us / the bringers of life / to receive a gift?”

The dog creeps her way into the clearing in the ensuing silence. This close, behind the blinding moonlight, she can see long, iridescent white locks drifting on the breeze, not unlike jellyfish tentacles reaching out to sting.

But the creature is offering something, and far be it for her to refuse.

The artificial light glows brighter in her peripherals until she’s completely submerged in the magic and can feel it burrowing into her very soul, cold beneath her skin like the snow that is suddenly billowing in swathes down from the sky, blinding her further, but she can’t close her eyes against it—they’re locked on the pale scars on the two ghostly faces, a spiral and an infinity symbol that seem to spin, endless, pulling her in—

She can no longer feel the chilly leaves beneath her paws. She can’t feel her paws at all. Her tail hangs limp and her jaw drops loose, ears flapping in the gale, hackles relaxing. She loses feeling and sight of her body and she is unmade. Time passes but how much is indeterminable. Her memories fade next, immaterial, meaningless—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 3: meeting the esk
> 
> Base Score: 22 AP (Writing: 1103 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 AP (Elemental: 5 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +20 AP (Esk Interaction Bonus: 10 AP * 2)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 110
> 
> for 2999:  
> Base Score: 11 GP (Writing: 1103 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 27
> 
> for 2892:  
> Base Score: 4.5 GP (Writing: 450 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 GP (Elemental: 5 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 19.5


	3. Chapter 3

(The creature drifts in place like a marionette held still, untouched by the swirling snow that’s reacting to the magic being performed in the forested clearing. Its tangle of long locks curl at the ends and snake through the grotesque fungi sprouting from the cracks in its body, fungi that seem to be multiplying by the second. The orange cordyceps soon cover most of their form as they stare unblinkingly, intently, at the transformation taking place, like a threat display from a territorial bird, their clawed fingers ready to attack given the chance.)

The dog’s eyes are pinned open as magic pours into her, filling her with a strange itching feeling—it isn’t comforting or gentle, because nothing about this strange creature whose magic chokes her is comforting or gentle, but neither does it hurt or even scare her. She doesn’t know what she’s accepted from the being, but she accepts it still. A gift, a change, a new chance. It tastes like the wild forest itself: fresh rainfall, earthy, moss and detritus, but it’s pure white and clear like the moon that lights up the clearing.

(The animal is filled with the magic and it lights them up from inside until they’re nothing but a glowing silhouette, only the essence of the canine left as her body is broken down and remade, reformed, shifted to suit her spirit. Above her, Poesy is for once silent—in curiosity and eagerness to see what will follow, for this performance is always so different each time. It has done this dance many times before on creatures that have unwittingly crossed its path, with that strange longing in their soul that draws Poesy close and asks for its power. It doesn’t mind; it likes experimenting, careless of the help or harm it causes, merely awaiting the end result. It can already feel the new moonstone forming within its fur.)

Years ago, Lady Luck crashed into another dog on the track and neither came out unscathed. The crooked hock that finally healed has sent painful tingles up her leg ever since, but now it’s gone—healed completely, or maybe nonexistent now. The pang of hunger in her stomach fades, the brightness no longer makes her eyes water, and the snow that stung her paw pads isn’t so harsh anymore… Or perhaps she can’t feel it at all. She has no paws or nose or tail, she is just light and memories. And the memories are disintegrating.

(The dog was tall and long legged, but the esk she is becoming is small and round. Poesy’s four eyes track her form as it shrinks and shifts, becoming mouselike with wavy ruffles of fur unlike her previously sleek coat. The sepia brindles turn mauve, the gradient spreading down her body like a splash of paint. Her dark eyes are wider than before though set in a much daintier face, and upon her head blooms a single flower. How intriguing, that the flora on this creature is so different from her creator’s—there’s yet to be any rhyme or reason to the phenomenon. Its cordyceps have yet to spread to another esk.)

As easily as she forgets her life of running after rabbits and pleading for food scraps, the tiny esk knows her new form. She knows the flower on her head is a pansy, a viola, once wild but then cared for and evolved over time until its petals spread wider and more vibrantly than ever. She knows the pansy means love, affection, admiration, and freedom. She barely knows herself anymore but she knows this pansy is the personification of her very nature. It’s perfect.

As if the pansy beret her head grew right from the little pansy shrub beside her resting place, she feels a tether tying her there, like a root system connecting her to the earth she’s sprouted from. In the back of her mind it strikes her as wrong, as a thing to fight and rebel against, a chain anchoring her to a small clearing in the woods with nothing much to explore—but she settles easily because like a flower’s root system, it’s delicate. Unbreaking, but not a heavy chain weighing her down. She’s still free.

(In all of Poesy’s gifts, the last thing to transform has been the heartbeat: the hummingbird thrum of each creature that, as the heart is reformed, builds into a vibration, a signature unique to each esk. Usually they dip and dive into a rough, low pulse that feels like anger or fear, unsure of its gift. But this time, the dog’s energy signature lifts to a high note and holds steady—contentment, acceptance. Is it because this time, unlike some of the others, their entire form changed rather than leaving their body behind? Is it easier to not lose so much of yourself? Poesy doesn’t understand it—their wings are made from the very pages they were transformed from, but there was nothing gentle about waking up.)

The dog—esk—hears her own heart shift to a new rhythm and knows it’s nearly over. This is their new form: a traveler, with a pansy nature feature and wavy plum coloured tail. She’s not sure how long it’s been since the strange fungi creature found her wandering the park—she can’t see the sky past this false moon—but it doesn’t matter. She has endless time now. She doesn’t need to breathe in this strange, mouthless body, but the first deep sigh of fresh air feels like the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 4: the transformation 
> 
> Base Score: 18 AP (Writing: 911 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 AP (Elemental: 5 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +20 AP (Esk Interaction Bonus: 10 AP * 2)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 106
> 
> for 2892:  
> Base Score: 9 GP (Writing: 911 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 GP (Elemental: 5 GP * 1)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 30
> 
> for 2999:   
> Base Score: 9 GP (Writing: 911 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 25


	4. Chapter 4

So this is it—her home, now, enforced on her, her tiny body tethered to it. Her boundary.

It’s beautiful at least. The snowfall is petering out with dawn’s approach, having left a light dusting of glistening white throughout the park. It’s thinner where she stands, and though her paws can feel the prickly cool sensation of the snow on her skin, it no longer stings and aches. 

Metres above her head, winter bare branches of an old growth oak reach out to shelter her delicate form. They’re gnarly and twisted from years of fighting against wind, wilting noticeably from the repeated summer months of holding heavy boughs of foliage and acorns. The bark crumbles in places, from insects burrowing in and birds digging after them.

And beside her is the shrine. It’s barely big enough for a dog to squeeze inside, but it would make a perfect nest for herself as she currently is. The brickwork isn’t perfect with stains of lichen spilling across the red clay, and the slate tiled roof is holding strong under a generous blanket of moss. There’s nothing inside it—whether there once was an offering or symbol within, she would never know; the wooden walls are warped and damp with age, and it could’ve been decades since someone set foot here to worship, care for it, or steal from it.

With the idyllic woodland surroundings and scattering of snow on the little steps, the shrine looks like a fairy’s house. She hopes that with a little love, attention, and decoration, when the pansies wake in the spring it’ll look like an esk’s home.

Many things will change come spring. The trees around this clearing will regrow their leaves, the brown landscape transforming into an ocean of green hues. There’ll be wildflowers blooming on the ground, likely bluebells and poppies and maybe others, and more varieties and colours of fungi than she could ever imagine will sprout in the rotting leaf litter and on fallen twigs. The park will come to life with the warm seasons, animals and humans both, and among them will be the nature spirits.

In the meanwhile, there’s much to explore. Had she lived here, before she was created? Was she just passing by? It was frustrating to have gaps in her memory, pages of her life story torn out and lost leaving only the ragged spine of emotions with no context and flashes of images that make no sense. But whether she knew this place before or not, she’s forgotten it now, and will make it her goal to relearn it.

She knows it’s a city park from the towering skyscrapers and loops of crisscrossing overhead wires that are just visible in the far distance, their tallest tips fading in the misty haze left behind by the snowstorm. There’s a quiet hum of engines not too nearby, slow on the slippery roads that are awaiting the salt trucks. Still, it seems endless.

Or maybe it’s because she’s so little now. Barely big enough to leap up the curb, struggling on the dips in cobblestone walkways she’d barely noticed before. Puddles are now ponds, yet the paper thin ice on their surfaces manage to hold her insignificant weight. 

However deep into this woodland park her boundary lies, there are remnants of human intervention dotting the place, even half buried with lack of regular maintenance. The stony path, meandering through the trees on a purposefully casual route, is bordered by little carved statues, their mossy faces worn from years of rain. Under a tangle of ivy off to one side is a bench, metal frame rusted, and a lamppost stands guardian above it—though it’s broken bulb no longer glows. Further along are patches edged with square cut rocks; flower beds, full of detritus and bare stalks, though perhaps there are living plants laying dormant below, sleeping, hiding until spring.

The longer she trots along, the further she goes from the little shrine she awoke beside, the weaker the tether seems to grow. Except it feels less like she’s regaining freedom, and more like this place away from home is alien to her—she doesn’t know these trees, or the dirt beneath her paws, or the birds watching from their perches. She feels a slight bit weaker, in the same way one feels unmoored and disconcerted in a place they’d never been before.

The purple and white pansy flower that flops against her head remains in its place, but she doesn’t feel so strong out here. The powers she’s yet to learn to use aren’t as accessible.

And yet… something about this is familiar. The unknown stretching out in front of her, the uncertainty of a safe place to shelter if it rains, the lack of a companion walking alongside her. She lacks that strength, but it’s a feeling she’s known before, will continue to endure.

She has an entire park and a forever lying ahead of her. She will walk the park until she’s passed every stone and shrub and signpost. The shrine is safe and dry and her home now. Perhaps she will find company one of these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 7: the threshold
> 
> Base Score: 17 AP (Writing: 860 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 80
> 
> Base Score: 8.5 GP (Writing: 860 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 24.5


	5. Chapter 5

She stands in the middle of the city and no one can see her.

It’s been weeks since she was transformed into this spirit creature and she’s still feeling lost. The uncanny esk who created her didn’t stay long and only spoke in riddles while they were here, no help at all, and Lyra can’t help feel a curl of resentment begin to settle in her stomach. It isn’t fair. 

She’s given up with mapping out the entire park. She’s just much too small as she is, her legs tiny and stride tiny, unable to see past the shrubs in front of her, routinely getting stuck in banks of snow barely a few inches deep. The paths are too winding and too many in number. The carved statues that stare down at her are menacing.

Her life before being a spirit still feels like a world away, viewed through warped glass, but as she explores the surroundings she had walked previously, some things do start coming back to her. 

Once, she’d begged on this street corner, just by the edge of the park. Widening her sorrowful eyes and perking her ears up, letting a long pink tongue loll over her teeth. One paw would lift and be placed gently on the knee of a kind faced human sitting nearby. A little whine. She lived on corners of burgers, slices of ham pulled from sandwiches, little chicken chunks plucked from pasta salads.

Now she leaps and bounds her way up onto the bench herself, balancing on the metal arm warmed by the sun, pale nose pointed up to assess the onlookers.

Of course no one looked back. She is a spirit, no longer tangible, cute still but only visible to the lost—and being lost in the hubbub of city traffic doesn’t quite cut it. Eyes pass right over her, focusing back on their newspapers and mobile phones. She doesn’t even want food this time, useless to her as it now is, just some company.

Is she destined to always be lonely?

A particularly hurried gentleman tosses a paper cup toward the bin beside her, the thick dregs inside sloshing up and splashing just centimetres from her wavy tail fur. She cowers away from it, hopping down to the pavement. He strides on without noticing a thing.

Incensed (but mostly frightened), the esk throws herself forward into a gallop, blindly dashing across tarmac and paving stones, through the slushy, muddy snow, heedless of the vehicles that race right over the top of her and boots that stomp down all around her. She zips left and right, dodges past sign posts and advertisement boards, over a decorative pot of morning glories, until she reaches a dark alleyway between two tall townhouses.

It’s still and quiet in this cramped corner, a notable change from the bustling street metres behind—here there’s only one other who, at the esk’s abrupt entrance, startles and scarpers over the back wall before she even realises they were there.

“Oh no, I’m sorry!” she calls after them. “You don’t need to leave, I promise I’ll not disturb you!”

But the creature is gone, and she’s once again alone. Her nature feature’s petals droop miserably along with her mood. She curls up on a dry, sheltered spot beside an overflowing dustbin, tucks her face beneath her tail, and wishes with everything she has.

_ I just want a friend. Someone to talk to, who will stay forever and give me hugs. I wish, I wish. _

“What’s this all about, then?” comes a voice from above, kind and warm and feminine, and unexpected.

She almost falls over from how quick she lifts her head, and then has to hurriedly side step a crumpled tin can that makes a loud clang when it hits the ground inches away.

“Oh, sorry about that—here, let me just…” They shuffle themselves around in the rubbish until they’re able to climb out tail first, scrabbling on the metal rim and then dropping down right on top of the can with a crunch.

It’s an opossum. Their soft fur is many shades of grey, their face white against mousy black ears, and their twitchy snout and dexterous toes pastel pink. There’s also a patch of white and indigo pansies blooming at their shoulder.

The esk lifts a paw to touch the identical pansy on her own head, awestruck. 

“There we are. Hello, dear,” the opossum says.

“Who are you?” the esk replies.

“Well, I don’t have a name yet—you haven’t given me one. What’s yours?”

She splutters, wrong footed. “I—you haven’t given me one either!”

The opossum nods consideringly, sits back on their haunches, and twirls their crooked whiskers in deep thought. Her round eyes are dark, but in the funny, artificial lighting from the lamp at the alley’s entrance, they glisten and appear iridescent.

“How about Lyra,” they suggest. “Something new for this new life, but still similar to your old one—Lady Luck.”

Lyra gawps at the opossum. “How on earth do you know that?” She’d barely known it herself, only really realising she knew it now that she’d heard it said. But the new name is a good one.

The animal’s laugh is soft and a bit croaky, making her sound like a merry grandmother. “Silly, I’m a part of you! Your familiar. You did just wish me into being, did you not?”

Oh, of course. The swell of pressure in her head as she made her wish wasn’t just tears building in her eyes—it was magic. She’s still not used to these newfangled powers she’s apparently gained.

“How about Pearl,” Lyra suggests in return.

The opossum, Lyra’s familiar—Lyra’s first friend—smiles, pointy teeth showing, fluffy cheeks pressing her eyes into soft half moons. “Absolutely perfect, dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 6: their purpose
> 
> Base Score: 19 AP (Writing: 959 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +1 AP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 83
> 
> Base Score: 9.5 GP (Writing: 959 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +1 GP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 GP * 1)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 26.5


	6. Chapter 6

The purple and white pansy blooming on Lyra’s head like a beret does not grow or wither or bud. It is constantly in its most beautiful form with its petals spread wide in splendour, the edges curled and yellow centre on full display. It has no stem or leaves, no sepal underneath nor even any unconnected pieces growing elsewhere. It is a single pansy flower, and that’s all it will ever be.

Lyra’s nature feature will never spread; not across her body nor across the sparse flowerbeds she spends time in. It’s a sad thought, that the only way she’ll see purple and white petals growing elsewhere will be purely by luck, but she has another solution.

When she awoke that first time, with hazy memories and a strangely small body, Lyra’s little nose was tucked into a dainty bush of purple pansies. Such unique flowers—a single plant and yet its many blossoms all feature different variations in colour and markings! One nearly completely white, but for a pastel violet tip on one single petal, and others so saturated with dark indigo that they look like shadows amongst the brighter hues.

This shrub gave her the pansy she displays so proudly now. Her pansy can’t spread seeds, but the plant it mimics can.

With summer beginning to draw to a close, the purple flowers turn brown and wrinkly, wilting and drying until they’re crunchy and sad. They fall from their stems with the gentlest brush of a breeze or esk paw, leaving a green leafy crown behind. And then, as she watches over them day and night, a delicate seed pod swells into being.

The spirit waits eagerly as the pod turns yellow and hard, until it finally splits open to reveal its treasure: a star coated in minuscule brown pebbles, shining like gold nuggets in the soft sunrise lighting.

Pansy seeds are tiny but so is Lyra, and her dainty paws are as soft as silk as she carefully collects the beads, tucking them one by one into her fluffy mane for safe keeping. They’ll dry during the day, and then she’ll find the perfect place to plant each and every one. Her boundary is going to be stunning by next spring.

✧

Back at home, finally. She hadn’t gone far at all, just to the edge of the wild side of the park, still in sight of her shrine (though the view was almost crowded with overgrown foliage), but it had been a long day. The ornamental flower beds and decoratively clipped hedges were within her reach across the quiet road, and it was amongst the mown lawn and meticulously weeded pathways that she met a lady who could see her.

It’s the second time now that she’s performed this strong magic, and it’s taken a lot out of her just like the last time did. But it’s worth it, because now she has another new friend—Fae, with creamy fur and a unique pansy that almost matches Lyra’s in colour. The flower varieties that the city gardeners have cultivated are strangely fancy versions of the common, wild plants, their petals all curly and ruffled, and Fae’s pansy mimics them.

She’d left Fae to explore their shared park. Pearl, Lyra’s opossum familiar and first friend, trundles up to the little abandoned shrine and sits at its steps, letting the esk slide bonelessly down her back and to the soft, mossy ground. They both take a look around the clearing, gazes fond, to admire the big oak that towers over them, the small building built between its roots, and a relatively new addition: a looming antler. 

There are no elk in these parts of the country, though Lyra had seen one once whilst out adventuring miles away from home, so it would be a peculiar sight to any human passing by. But it didn’t fall from an elk in shedding season—it grew into existence from magic, or the earth, or something. Lyra admittedly doesn’t really know how, but she does know it formed from the swell of power she used to turn Thimble into the little pansy spirit she is now. Poesy, Lyra’s own creator, instead grew a glistening shard of white moonstone that floats around their heads, reflecting their moonlight elemental all around.

She’s not sure why Thimble’s gift came as an elk antler, but it’s perfect. With its base stuck in the ground, the tines curve into the air to frame her shrine. There’s a strand of young ivy just beginning to climb it, which she allows.

At the tip of her nose is that familiar tickle of energy once again, this time for Fae. There’s no need for another antler, and although crystals are beautiful she doesn’t think it’s quite right this time… The antler is much larger than Lyra’s little body but the tines make perfect footholds for her to clamber up to the highest points. She knows somehow that this is exactly the place.

The magic rushes and swirls and she squints against it, and then it eventually clears to reveal a delicate bird nest balanced between the crown tines.

Yes, that’s perfect. 

✧

The shrine at the centre of the small stretch of city park that is her boundary isn’t very big at all. Perhaps once upon a time there was a statue inside, depicting whoever or whatever it was intended for, and maybe a book of stories about that person or thing, and… gifts given by visitors? Lyra isn’t sure what this deity would have wanted or received from people.

Either way, upon her first inspection it stood empty, but for a patch of moss creeping its way inside. This is no longer the case.

Lyra is sweet and kind and friendly and enjoys lots of hobbies, but above all she’s restless and mostly loves adventuring. She tried following alongside Poesy soon after they created her, but the strange two-headed esk didn’t wait for her to keep up, chattering away to themselves in funny languages, drifting higher and higher until they seemingly disappeared into thin air. Pearl is a creature of the city and follows her along the roadside verge quite happily, but can’t keep her company when Lyra slips away from the tarmac. It was a long while before she found Thimble, who is a perfect partner for exploring: the same size and speed as herself, and able to run with her through all the biomes they’d discovered so far.

Lyra loves all of these quests and wants to remember each one, and so she diligently keeps an eye out for a memento to bring home with her each time. Her shrine, once bare inside, is now the home of a special collection of items: a scrap of rainbow fabric from a kite they’d found on a beach; a beautifully carved pebble they’d had to dig out of a snow pile to collect; a chipped fossil of a curled shell they’d uncovered in a desert; and a sheet of thick, rough paper folded into a boat that they’d caught on its voyage down a stream.

She thinks that one day very soon the shrine will be stuffed full and overflowing, but there’s a nice, dry looking hollow in the oak tree a metre above, so she’s not worried!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> origin prompt 9: shaping their environment
> 
> Base Score: 24 AP (Writing: 1216 words)  
> +50 AP (Origin Prompt)  
> +1 AP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 88
> 
> Base Score: 12 GP (Writing: 1216 words)  
> +10 GP (Origin Prompt)  
> +1 GP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 GP * 1)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 29


End file.
